How it all started....

I was a meire 13 years old when I recieved my first injury.  It was the evening of the 4th of July and I was enjoying a fun game of Volleyball with the other neighbor kids.  I went up for the ball, my friend went down for the ball and well my right knee got in the way and POW I was hurt.  About 6 months later just before I turned 14 I had my first surgery.  It was an arthroscopic surgery.  I was told that I had a medial torn mensicus.  (out side of the leg...mensicus is the cushion between the bones so they don't rub.) I had this portion of my tear removed.  About 3 or so years later I began having problems again in that same area, so an MRI was done and I was told I had another tear, so yup, surgery again.  Then a few years later, same thing, and a few years later, yup, same thing......by now it was a total of 4 surgeries on my right knee.  By this time I began to question why I kept tearing the meniscus.  I was active, etc but didn't seem to really be doing anything for these kind of tears to happen.  Finally my surgeon said he thought it had something to do with the allignment of my knees.  He called it inward valgous, or "knock knee."  Of course it isn't completely noticable by many but was told that this is probably the reason for me to continue to have these tears.

I was told that I may be a candidate for a mensicus allograph (or transplant from a cadaver) so I was sent to the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle to see a sports medicine/Orthopeadic specialist.  This was when things really began to change.....

I was told that yes the reasons for the continued tears is the knock knees.  I was then told that I could not get a mensicus allograph because of the allignment of my knee.  So I was prescribed a knee  brace, something that reminds me of Forrest Gump, oh and not to mention it was an $850 brace.  So off I went with that.

A few months later I decided it may be beneficial to get a second opinon so off I went to see another Surgeon.  He is at Overlake Hospital in Bellevue.

This is when my life has really began to change..........

I was told that I was a prime candidate for a "femoral osteotomy with a mensicus allograph"....now in english.....a fracture of the femur to re allign the knee and get a mensicus transplant.  I was told that I would highly benefit from this until I am old enough to get a total knee replacement.  So after much discussion and research, etc I have decided to go ahead with this.  And well, this is how I got #1 on my left and #5 on my right.

Yup, you guessed, I had MORE tears in my mensicus.  So I was fixed on the left and now have nothing left on my right....the process has begun....read more to follow.